European threat perceptions after Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine: The end of “strategic cacophony”?

Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine is widely regarded as the most severe shock to European security since the Cold War, raising expectations that European states would converge around a shared perception of Russia as the dominant threat. This article provides the first comprehensive cross-national assessment of whether and how the war against Ukraine reshaped threat perceptions across Europe. It introduces a typology that captures both the intensity attributed to the Russian threat and its relative prioritization within national security hierarchies. The study finds a widespread upward shift in threat perception after 2022, resulting in a narrowing of cross-national differences. However, these shifts did not result in full convergence, as differences in intensity and prioritization remain substantial. These findings can be understood as reflecting the combined influence of geographic exposure and nationally embedded strategic cultures, which shape how external shocks are translated into national threat perceptions.